


Silver Blades and Shades of Gray

by the_musical_alchemist



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, manga spoilers!, v slight beruani during one part but it's mostly just a berb character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 05:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10847784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_musical_alchemist/pseuds/the_musical_alchemist
Summary: We’re going home. Someday. I promise.Bertolt grips those words with white knuckles, even as they writhe and twitch between his fingers. The moment he lets go, the moment the world wrenches them from his hands, he’ll be forced to open his eyes.





	Silver Blades and Shades of Gray

_We’re going home. Someday. I promise_.

Bertolt grips those words with white knuckles, even as they writhe and twitch between his fingers. The moment he lets go, the moment the world wrenches them from his hands, he’ll be forced to open his eyes. Miles of rubble wet with the blood of his friends, steam rising from his own healing wounds, and an empty road would obscure all of his dreams. The truth of what he’s done would steal his hope.

So he screws his eyes shut, crushes Reiner’s promise in his trembling fist, and holds his breath as he trudges through the smoke echoing the flames he used to burn down the world.

 _Home_.

* * *

He sits alone at the edge of a cliff, his long legs dangling over a fall that would surely kill him should he inch just a little closer. Or maybe it would if he were human.

Reiner is still asleep; the leaves that rustle in the wind and the forest’s euphonious ringing are Bertolt’s only companion. It’s beautiful how he can be such a stranger to this place. He could spend the rest of his life right here and the trees would be none the wiser. He isn’t Bertolt Hoover or the Colossal Titan. Right now, he is only what he appears as: a boy who has lost his way.

Would he give everything up? Is he doing the right thing? Would it be easier to just shed his identity like a coat that doesn’t quite fit? His titan is far too big. Shifting feels like drowning in rough waters he can’t seem to break the surface of.

Or is it too late?

Does any of this matter anymore?

Bertolt has lost the luxury of discerning right from wrong. His entire world is a sea of gray with blades drawn from every shade.

They’re all aimed at him.

* * *

_What are we fighting for?_

Bertolt’s heart beats twice as fast, as if both he and Reiner’s lives throb inside his chest. He feels Annie’s delicately pulsing life carve into the center of his stomach. In the face of this battle that may very well be his last, he allows himself to return to the day he decided to join the Scouts. What if he had known that watching her join the Military Police would be the very last time he saw her? Would he have taken more time to commit her features to memory? Would he have been bold enough to stop her in her tracks and burden her with his confession? Is it crueler to dwell on this now than it was to have left her alone to die?

_What are we fighting for?_

If his comrades aren’t his family, then who is? If Eren and the others aren’t worth fighting for, then _who is_?

Bertolt claws his way through the everlasting gray sea, desperate for a fleck of color. Aimlessly, he fights, seeing nothing but white sunlight glinting off familiar silver blades. It all comes back to this.

He fights for home, however he’ll be allowed to return. It’s the only thing he has left.

* * *

All of this is wrong. As he lay helpless at the mercy of his former friends and comrades, all he can ask himself is how it got to this. In the end, he isn’t Bertolt Hoover or a boy who has lost his way. He is the Colossal Titan. Right now, he exists as an anecdote for an otherwise lethal poison.

Armin.

Commander Erwin.

Why doesn’t he feel anything?

Every last shred of his humanity drifts through the currents of that bottomless gray sea. Whoever wears his skin now knows only that this is where he must open his eyes. Reiner’s promise doesn’t escape, but instead lay inside of him like a crumpled dream. He held on so tightly that he hadn’t realized he’d crushed it to ruins.

Maybe he’s sorry, but his heart rises to his throat, choking the part of him that wants to make all of this right. It’s too late. Too late. Too late.

He wonders if Reiner is nearby. If there is still a chance to rectify all of this. If maybe he’ll get to live another day. Panic chokes him like a vise as his former friends’ grief turns to fury turns to desperation turns to cold indifference.

 _You did this to them. You did this to yourself_.

The realization passes through him like a ghost. And right then, he’s seized by desperation. It claws at his chest; a scream forms in the back of his throat. His friends, his comrades, the only family and love he’d known for his entire life, deliver him to his end like absolutely nothing. He shouldn’t blame them. He shouldn’t hate them for it. It doesn’t quell the fear that shoots like electricity through his veins.

He’s going to die alone.

He’s going to die alone.

He’s going to die right here, hated, and alone.

He screams as if it will tear the world apart. But from under the surface of this gray sea, no one can hear him.

Bertolt Hoover is never going home.

 


End file.
